First Amendment litigation involving book censorship in schools has usually turned on the rights of a school board to control classroom curricula by prohibiting the use of certain texts, and an inquiry into whether a certain challenged text is vulgar. Some federal courts have distinguished between objective vulgarity—which a school board may prohibit—and the subject matter of a book (witchcraft, lesbian romance) with which the school board members may personally disagree or have a distaste for—and which a school board may not prohibit.

But one federal court recently stated that book banning takes place when a government or its officials forbid or prohibit others from having a book. The term does not apply where a school district—through its authorized school board—decides not to continue possessing the book on its own library shelves. The school board is the entity that has the ultimate authority to decide what books will be purchased and kept on the shelves of the schools in the district—and the school board can decide not to purchase and shelve a book in the first place.

In Missouri, First Amendment litigation related to book censorship in schools often revolves around the balance between a school board's authority to manage classroom curricula and the rights of individuals against censorship. Federal law, including First Amendment jurisprudence, typically allows school boards to exclude books that are deemed objectively vulgar from curricula and libraries. However, federal courts have indicated that school boards cannot ban books based solely on personal disagreements with the subject matter, such as themes of witchcraft or LGBTQ+ relationships. A recent federal court ruling clarified that the term 'book banning' specifically refers to the act of forbidding access to a book. It does not encompass a school board's decision not to purchase or retain a book in a school's library. Thus, in Missouri, as in other states, while school boards have significant discretion in selecting educational materials, their decisions can be subject to legal challenge if they appear to infringe upon First Amendment rights by prohibiting books based on their content rather than their appropriateness.